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257
Cranford
·
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
210
What
she
piqued
herself
upon,
as
arts
in
which
she
excelled,
was
making
candle-lighters,
or
“spills”
(as
she
preferred
calling
them),
of
coloured
paper,
cut
so
as
to
resemble
feathers,
and
knitting
garters
in
a
variety
of
dainty
stitches.
I
had
once
said,
on
receiving
a
present
of
an
elaborate
pair,
that
I
should
feel
quite
tempted
to
drop
one
of
them
in
the
street,
in
order
to
have
it
admired;
but
I
found
this
little
joke
(and
it
was
a
very
little
one)
was
such
a
distress
to
her
sense
of
propriety,
and
was
taken
with
such
anxious,
earnest
alarm,
lest
the
temptation
might
some
day
prove
too
strong
for
me,
that
I
quite
regretted
having
ventured
upon
it.
A
present
of
these
delicately-wrought
garters,
a
bunch
of
gay
“spills,”
or
a
set
of
cards
on
which
sewing-silk
was
wound
in
a
mystical
manner,
were
the
well-known
tokens
of
Miss
Matty’s
favour.
But
would
any
one
pay
to
have
their
children
taught
these
arts?
or,
indeed,
would
Miss
Matty
sell,
for
filthy
lucre,
the
knack
and
the
skill
with
which
she
made
trifles
of
value
to
those
who
loved
her?
I
had
to
come
down
to
reading,
writing,
and
arithmetic;
and,
in
reading
the
chapter
every
morning,
she
always
coughed
before
coming
to
long
words.
I
doubted
her
power
of
getting
through
a
genealogical
chapter,
with
any
number
of
coughs.
Writing
she
did
well
and
delicately—
but
spelling!
She
seemed
to
think
that
the
more
out-of-the-way
this
was,
and
the
more
trouble
it
cost
her,
the
greater
the
compliment
she
paid
to
her
correspondent;
and
words
that
she
would
spell
quite
correctly
in
her
letters
to
me
became
perfect
enigmas
when
she
wrote
to
my
father.
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